Piazzi Pitti | Boboli Gardens

Florence:  HAPPY NEW YEAR! Our best wishes for a Happy Rosh Hashanah!

The danged Home Depot phoned - again - in the middle of the night to arrange - again - for the washer/dryer delivery on Saturday (between 8 am and noon) to Lisa's new home. Lisa and I can't tell you how many times we have given them her phone number, yet they insist on phoning my cell phone! The Home Depot lady informed me that the model Lisa had purchased was no longer in production so she had upgraded Lisa to a better model. This is well and good, but I told her Lisa had a serious size restriction. The area for the washer and dryer was constructed about the same time wringer washers were in fashion! Home Depot assured me the replacement units were the exact same size. It must have been around 3 am Italy-time when she phoned and then I had to then phone Lisa at her office to give her the update... then I just couldn't get back to sleep right away and dozed on and off until about six o'clock when I just got up and worked on my website and read for a few hours until DT woke up to go for a run.

Hotel de la Ville Dining Room

Today, we were taking the day off - only visiting the Boboli Gardens and strolling a bit around beautiful Florence. We have had such good luck with the weather and today it was about ten (welcome) degrees cooler. A good day for a stroll. After DT ran five miles (he is regretting the last two already) and a quick coffee in the hotel dining room, we headed out to Boboli, a thirty minute walk from our hotel. We were in luck, as today is European Heritage Day, so admission to the garden was free. (Saved 17 Euros!) The Boboli Gardens are the "back yard" to the Piazza Pitti, the home of the Medici family. Quite nice digs, I must say.

 
A view from the Boboli Garden behind the piazza and inside the courtyard of Piazza Pitti


Piazza Pitti (rear view)

 
A hedgerow in the garden and the Neptune statue


A view from the top of the gardens back to the Piazzi Pitti (dt)


The Duomo from Boboli Gardens


Garden statue (dt)

We spent over four hours in the garden and touring through the art museum in the Palazzo. We saw only about one-quarter of the collection! At the top of the Boboli Gardens is a small house that now is a porcelain museum. Fine table items from the 1600's to modern times are on display - very gorgeous, detailed work. From this point, you can see out over the Tuscany countryside at pretty estates, palaces and farms. It was a bit too hazy for photographs, sorry. Other museum highlights include dresses from the 1800's and countless priceless works of art - paintings, statues, bronzes, furniture, etc., owned by the Medici family. (These dudes were rich.) The museum also houses an extensive collection of Italian "modern" art (anything from 1784-1924!), including a small collection of impressionist paintings. As we exited the garden, we passed this famous statue (below) - the Bacchus Fountain (1560) by Valerio Cioli. The statue shows Pietro Barbino, Cosimo I's court dwarf (doesn't everyone have a court dwarf?) as Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, riding a turtle. (Cosimo I is the same guy who built the Uffizi that we visited yesterday.)

Pietro Barbino

It was time to head back to the hotel - but first we needed something to eat! Hey, how about Italian food?!? We found a quick and quiet spot inside a courtyard of a busy shopping street.

Carpaccio of Beef: Braseola is dried cured beef, served with lemon, pecorino cheese
and fresh lemon wedges - a specialty of Tuscany and one of our favorite finds in Florence.


Penne with four cheeses


Yet another perfect pizza Margherita

After this "light" lunch/breakfast (at 2 pm) we strolled back over the Ponte Vecchio Bridge to our hotel, stopping to do a little souvenir shopping on the way. Then - time for a gelato! Today's flavor: tiramisu, complete with chunks of ladyfinger. Very yummy, but not worth $8, no matter what. (Usually, a gelato is 1-3 Euros.)

Here is a photo of a typical Florentine alley -
jammed with scooters parked everywhere.

I had a nice long nap this afternoon while DT worked a bit. Luckily we are able to get our emails on our phones and occasionally tap-in to the wireless network of some poor sap living behind the hotel (thank you USR5462... whoever you are). In a pinch I can even use my cell phone as a modem. Long-time readers may remember me using my cell phone as a modem quite a bit from the Baltics last summer.

Lisa now has a washer/dryer! And, they fit the space. Whew! She was on her second load of laundry when she called this evening. Everything is going well at her new house, except for the nightly skunk visitation. Lisa has also learned there is a serious coyote problem in her neighborhood, so the doggie-door idea for Reese is off the drawing board. So much for living in the big city!

Tonight we had plans to visit a very popular dining spot in Florence. I powered-up my GPS and discovered Buca Mario was .2 miles away! We dressed and strolled two minutes to the restaurant. The friendly owner/hostess was quite distressed that she had a crowd waiting to be seated, so ordered a round of Chianti for everyone crowded in the doorway! People were lingering near the door, on the lane outside, sipping wine from teeny cups. Within five minutes we were seated and enjoyed a very fine meal. The specialty of Florence is a steak - a T-bone - cut about two inches thick, and grilled to a crispy crust and completely rare on the interior. The steaks rolling out of the kitchen tonight looked to me to the size of roasts!

We ordered appetizers. Buca Mario offered apples and honey for New Years, so we enjoyed a plate and toasted to a Happy New Year. DT ordered a veal stew, I had a simple chicken with fried zucchini - the squash flower included - and we shared delicate asparagus. Buca Mario is a real restaurant, with professional waiters in white dinner jackets, white linens and exceptional service. Most of the patrons were obviously regulars and were warmly greeted by the owners and lovingly escorted to the door when finished with their meals.

Veal Stew with white beans

Tonight we were chatted-up by a lone American boy from Texas, living in Milan for three months because of his job. He was in Florence for the weekend and ordered the roast-sized steak and actually invited us to a taste - he could spare a bite or two. We declined, but the scent of that steak was divine.

Tomorrow, we will leave for Venice and will meet up with Woody and Kathy (who have been in Cinqua Terra the past few days) and with Steve and Mary (who are on a plane as we speak).

My pedometer reads only about 12,000 steps. DT says something is wrong, that it was caught up on my waistband or something, as he knows we walked more. Either way - we were on our feet from 10 o'clock until 5, with only a quick stop for lunch.